 Okay. Donna, did you want to call the meeting's order? Do you want to wait a few minutes? No. Do we have everybody here? I think, I think we have a quorum. Okay. No, it's, it's nine o'clock. So I'm, I'm good with it. If it looks good on your end. I'm just, I'm sorry. Before we start, I just wanted to say that Donna's going to send an email out to everybody. You should all have your closed session invites from community TV. If you have a closed session, it's the same closed session invite for both sessions. When we go into closed session, you get out of this meeting. You sign into the closed session. If you have any problems getting into the closed session, either email or call me and we'll get you linked in right away. Okay. And that applies to both. So same link for both closed sessions. And Ian Barry just had sent an email out. I was reading that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We just thought it was the best way to do it at the very last minute. Nobody gets confused. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Donna. Go ahead. No, no, no. That's all good information. And let me just close that. A window. All right. All right. We're ready then. Okay. And one at the end. Yeah, I think he was kidding. But, um, Too early for sarcasm. Dan. Sorry about that. I'm only on my fourth cup of coffee. Okay. We'll try this. Good evening or good morning. Or maybe I need more coffee. Good morning. Yeah. Meeting of the Metro Board of Directors on May 21st to order. And ask for a roll call. We have director. Director. Good morning. Good evening or good morning. Or maybe I need more coffee. Good morning. Yeah. Meeting of the Metro Board of Directors on May 21st to order and ask for a roll call. We have director. Here. Dr. Good noise. Dr. Collin sorry, Johnson. Here. Dr. Here. You're muted. Here. Thank you. I'm here. I saw you. Dr. Here. Dr. Peterson. Here. Dr. Rothwell. Here. Dr. Rockin. Here. Exificio. Dr. Henderson. Here. Exificio. Dr. North. Full house quorum. All right. Thank you, everybody. So we'll start with announcements. And one is today's meetings being broadcast by community television in Santa Cruz County. So we thank them. And are there any other. Comments. On items not on the agenda. That. They may have. Madam chair. Alex here. Just real quick. I want to double check. I don't see any audience attendees. Let them in or they're just no audience attendees. It's not possible. Yeah. It's, it's our ploy to make this meeting go shorter. See. Okay. It looks like they're coming up now. Okay. So we're giving it a moment and for those coming in. We just called the meeting to order and. Opening. The meeting for public comment on any items that are not on the agenda. And we're giving a moment for all of you to, to join us. I don't see any hands. Oh, wait. Yes. I don't. Yep. There's one. Yeah. All right. Three. And again, this is for items that are not on the agenda. So we will start with Brett Garrett. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good morning. I was waiting for the meeting to start. So now I have to find my notes. Just a second. And yeah, the meeting just started and we didn't even hit it. Just check in on the agenda item. Chairland. Yes. Are we, I think we're on agenda. Three. With the announcements. Right. That's not the same as our communication. Oh, okay. All right. Not to light up item number nine. Actually. So Brett should get his nose together and call him back. That'll be after our closed session. Okay. Yeah, I found my notes, but I'm. Not on the agenda. So we'll start. First of all, do, are there any announcements from board members? Again. If you. Let me repeat again. If you. Donna, if you look at the agenda. Usually what happens at the top is not happening until after our closed session, the first closed session. Right now, these are simply announcements from you to the public about anything. The oral communication. And all that is happening after the closed session. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to, I am looking at my agenda, but on ours, our announcements are a little different. So, but I was just now moving. To our next item, which is item number four, and that will be Julie reviewing items to be discussed in closed session. So. Okay. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. We. So our first closed session is on a public employee performance evaluation. For the position of the CEO general manager. And just a reminder to make sure we allow for public comment before we reset. Okay. Yes. And so we will open. We will have an opportunity for any public comment before this closed session item. And I know I see. Turn in Colby's hand up. Good morning, members. Good morning. Good morning. My name is. Colby and the lead internal organizer. One of the two unions for Metro workers. I'm here today because our members have great concerns about Alex flipper's behaviors. In the last seven years. The culture of fear has grown so strong. And our members are terrified to speak out about Alex's behavior. Which is why I'm here today. We're at another agency. We might have settled. I want to take away. I don't want to take away from your time, but you've got a really bad echo in the background. Do you have something else on. It's coming up with a few speakers that came up with micro speaking as well. There. I don't know what's going on with that. It's really kind of annoying. Okay. I'm sorry. But it's really hard to hear you from me. I don't know. I think everybody needs to mute. Anybody. Now y'all, can you hear me? Yes, way better. Oh my God. All right. Thank you for checking in about audio. So anyway, where was I? Please start over. I'm sorry, guys. Can we start his timer and everything over again? Cause I didn't get anything. What he said. We good with that. Yeah. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Sorry. Good morning. Members of the board. My name is Kiernan Colby. I'm the lead internal organizer for SEIU five to one. One of two unions for Metro workers. I'm here because our members have grave concerns about Alex. Clifford's behavior as CEO. In the last seven years. The culture of fear has grown so strong at Metro. That our members are terrified to speak out about Alex's behavior, which is why I'm here today. We're at another agency. We might have settled workplace issues at the lowest level. Alex is the CEO. We're at another agency. We might have settled workplace issues at the lowest level. Alex's totalitarian approach to our membership leaves no room for collaboration. His callous attitude has cost Metro and the public. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary legal expenses. These expenses come in the form of arbitrations, which could have been resolved at the lowest level of Alex was more collaborative. And hundreds of thousands of dollars in exorbitant attorney fees during negotiations. Alex is the CEO of Metro. In the context, most of our agencies handle contract negotiations with SEI union house. He has on multiple occasions. Restructured his own pay table to give himself raises, which would make most public servants blush. A month and a half ago, we reached out to Alex to request a meet with our union leaders in the spirit of maintaining harmonious labor relations. He has yet to offer a response. Other than to say he's quote pondering our request. Alex has been in touch with the office. Alex has been in touch with the office. Alex has met with the office. Alex has been in touch with the office. We are confirmed to meet for our meeting this winter. Alex has assisted that our members returned to work in the office. No other agency. We represent mandated that all workers return to the office with no flexibility. Then for cents. These are concerns are why workers at both your unions are submitting today a vote of no confidence in Alex. are publicly stating they have no confidence in Alex Clifford's leadership. As leaders at Metro and in our community, I urge you to step in now. We want to partner with management to make Metro the best transit agency possible that Alex has stood in our way at every turn. Please do the right thing, do not extend Alex Clifford's contract. Thank you so much and hopefully you'll be able to hear from James Sandoval as well who's been working with us on this. Thank you Karen and next we have James. Good morning board, can you hear me? Yes. James Sandoval here, general chairperson for SMART who represents the bus drivers here at Metro as well as the paratransit drivers at Paracruz. I just want to thank each and every board and director for meeting with our representatives for our unions. We appreciate the respect and partnership and we hope to continue to build on these relationships. As you know we have serious concerns about Alex Clifford's behavior as the CEO of Metro and we're asking you not to renew his contract. Both SEIU and SMART have asked our membership whether they have confidence in Alex Clifford's leadership to substantiate the concerns we have discussed with you. We present this petition in solidarity with our SEIU brothers and sisters as a vote of no confidence in our CEO Alex Clifford and a survey put out to all of our members and both SEIU and SMART 83% of our members said they have no confidence in Alex Clifford's leadership. Our petition reads we the signed staff of Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District have composed this letter to express our dissatisfaction with our current CEO general manager Alex Clifford. This letter is to express a vote of no confidence in Alex Clifford and his abilities to function as a CEO general manager for Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District. We the signeeds understand the severity of this decision and did not arrive at it hastily. In the past SMART formerly known as UTU and Metro have always functioned well together as a cohesive group thriving in the spirit of cooperation. Metro has always been a family and a place where we supported each other in the deliverance of the best public service and the space for good working relations. Prior to Alex Clifford we have been proud of the work that we did working collaboratively and we felt like our input made a difference. Throughout his tenure as CEO general manager we the employees of Metro have had concerns regarding Alex Clifford's ability to lead this agency due to his lack of professionalism and his leadership specifically regarding trust integrity collaboration decision making vision and his lack of respect for other staff. Metro relies on the collaboration from all of staff to provide exemplary public service for our community. Alex has demonstrated an ongoing lack of respect for all the Metro staff and his comments are consistently degrading and disrespectful towards the workforce as a whole. After many discussions with Alex Clifford and an attempt to improve relationships he continues to prove his this interest in developing a working partnership with his employees. We have given many chances to Alex to see if you'd be willing to work with the staff in this spirit of cooperation to grow the transit system by securing grants developing programs in shape and place of best practices for job. All of which would allow Alex to change and grow in his leadership. Time to time again he has actively refused to cooperate in a productive affirming and mutual workplace. Alex's ongoing harmful choices in his position of leadership needs to stop. The morale is low amongst our members and we attribute that primarily to Alex Clifford and therefore we are insisting on the change of leadership for Metro. We stand in solidarity with the support of this vote of no confidence in this petition. And we want to make it clear these issues with Alex have been going on for years well before COVID. Our Union Smart has been... Your time has expired. Let him finish this comment that'd be my view. It's your choice of course. You just need to wrap it up okay. I got one paragraph. Thank you Donna. Thank you Mike. These issues with Alex have been going on for years well before COVID. Our Union Smart has been experiencing the heavy hand for Metro management for a long time now. We know it comes from the top. Instead of creating a support system especially during a time of a pandemic Metro has been pushing a lot of discipline against our members for reasons that really have no merit. That has put a lot of stress on our drivers thinking they could be next on the list to be hit with this infamous hammer that has been swinging around for quite some time now. I mean I just literally had to represent a member that's facing termination yesterday. Last time Metro attempted to terminate one of our members we had to take it to arbitration to get this job back because Alex refused to work with us and Metro lost the case and had to pay up a significant amount to make up for it. This heavy hand is also the reason why the rest of our members were afraid to put their name on this voter no confidence petition because they fear retaliation for voicing themselves. None of the less 83% of our members from both unions have chosen to speak out because we cannot stand for this behavior anymore. We hope you all as board of directors for Metro seriously consider these concerns from your workforce. We're proud of the work for Metro. We want to see Metro grow and return to the family it used to be. We need the right person at the top to make that happen. We need someone that can respect our hard work and seize our unions as an allies rather than enemies. With morale at an all-time low we are hoping for a change to bring in leadership who will join us in our vision of united prosperous public transportation system. Thank you very much. Okay thank you James anyone else and we have Jeffrey Smedberg. Hopefully I'm saying that correctly Jeffrey. Okay good morning thank you Ms Bauer and board of directors for Metro. My name is Jeffrey Smedberg. I am a long-term resident of Santa Cruz County and at times have relied heavily on a metro bus system for transportation and I'm coming to this morning with my views about the CEO Alex Clifford. I do have friends and acquaintances who work for both of the unions that are represented that represent the members of at the Metro and I just wanted to stand with them with those members in urging you to in a vote of no confidence for the CEO Alex Clifford. We definitely need a good bus system in this community and the only way we're going to get that is with good strong leadership that's collaborative and willing to work with all the staff. Thank you very much for listening to my comments. Thank you Jeffrey. Anyone else? Okay seeing no other public comments I will then close the public comment we'll move into closed session and when we return we'll provide whatever information comes from that and give you a moment before opening it up again for public comment time. Madam Chair just to be clear is this just take this closed session we're just having one closed session to go. Two okay we have two we won the one at the very end over a negotiation item but this one is the one that Julie moved mentioned. So we'll move in same link for that so you'll have an email from Donna and one for actually there are two emails for us but we'll move into that closed session. Dan Henderson you have a question? Yes just how will we be notified if the closed session is complete? I can answer that Dan we'll send an email to you and Alta and say that we're coming back so when we get everybody back when we know that everybody's coming back in we'll send you guys email and it'll take a while for everybody to log out of the closed session get back into the public so we'll give a few minutes if for some reason you're not going to be able to participate when we reconvene just let me know so that we're not waiting you know for somebody who's not going to be here. Copy thank you. Okay thanks. Okay and Elise has a hand up. Does it mean Alta? Possibly I'm sorry. No no no I was just agreeing. No there is no. Well there is no Elise has her hand up. Oh okay good. I'm a member of the public I don't know if you can all see my hand I'm trying. Yeah I do see it. And I've been trying to speak but I'm sorry this screen for some reason is not like my other zoom screens. We'll go ahead. Okay thank you so much I'm actually here to speak about the no confidence vote. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay I think it's extremely important that Alex Clifford be leco and not rehired as CEO of the bus company. I am a bus rider I take the bus everywhere and in 2016 I formed a grassroots organization to help fight the bus route cuts that Mr Clifford inaugurated. The little grassroots group was called Santa Cruz bus riders but we had a somewhat of an effect on making sure that about 33 percent of the bus routes were not cut. I'll just start with this. The fact that Alex Clifford was ever hired is really egregious. I don't know if you all know this but there was an enormous scandal in the state of Illinois where he came from. Apparently there was some harm to the train company that he ran. That was never proven but what was proven was it took I think it was a couple hundred thousand dollars plus a million dollars to get him out of his contract. They had to pass a law in Illinois that to make sure that never happens again. So why would why would the board take such an enormous risk on someone like that? I think it's exactly because the board at this time was being governed by people who wanted to make sure that the bus company would be a company and led by a person who would go along with the plans for development downtown who would be interested in diminishing the drivers union who wanted to make sure that it was no longer the kind of bus company that would if it had continued in the way that it was developing to be a robust public transportation system alternate to fossil fuel cars and Mr Clifford came on board and immediately started to do everything against the public good. The first one of the first things he did is spend $50,000 to give himself the title of CEO. The previous general manager was well liked and used to find grants everywhere to support the bus company. It's not that there hadn't been labor struggles before. The second thing Mr Clifford did was start to attack the paratransit. That's when I started to notice what was going on. So the people of the least ability to walk who are in wheelchairs are going to get their services cut on and on. It has gone on in this way. He attacked the union. Finally, we had this bus cut situation in 2016. I'm running out of time. This is not the right kind of leadership for our union. And I hope, Mike, that you won't just contradict what I'm saying. Thank you very much. Thank you, Elise. Okay. We go ahead, Gina. I see Brett's hand up, but he has spoken. So you normally, it's one time. Brett wants to talk during general oral communication, or at least that was his past, what he wanted to talk about before. Not about this closed session item. Mike, since his hands up, I'd like to double check to see if you're from Brett. Yeah, I just want to very quickly give my support for the other speakers who have made important comments. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Now, since we've heard from both board members and probably if there are no other questions from the board, we will move in the closed session and everyone will be notified when we return. And you'll have an opportunity to review whatever decision is made and be able to come in again. So we will return after closed session. Thank you. Gina, I'm going to try just sending it to you, just in case the group thing is what's holding it up. Oh, just showed up. Here it is. Oh, cool. Yay. Got it. And Julie, I have one more procedural question. Do I need to take a roll call when we come back? Or no, because we're going to recess? No, no, we're still, you know, we still are convened. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Okay, I'm going to mute me. But we're good to go anytime you and you and Don are because we've got on our end. Okay. Okay. So, Julie, I'm going to, well, I'm going to announce that we have reconvened and announced that we will be reviewing the amendment that has been presented from our closed session. And I'll ask Julie Sherman to describe that. Thanks. And hopefully everyone can hear me. Did we not promise people 15 minutes to review it? Yeah. So yeah, that's what we're going to say. That's what we're going to announce. Right. So we have a draft fifth amendment to the employment agreement of the CEO. And that is going to be screen shared. And, you know, I'm also on the Metro website while we take a 15 minute recess. We'll come back. I'll do an oral report summarizing the amendment and before the board votes, there will be an opportunity for board comment and public comment. Okay. So this will be an opportunity for everyone to review it. We'll give you that time before to review it before we return with that item or reconvene with that item. Okay. So, Gina, if you could have the folks screen share, that would be great. And then Donna's going to recess the meeting for 15 minutes. Okay. We're going to reconvene the meeting. And we'll start with, I will start by asking if there are comments from the board. Or do you want, how about if I review the amendment? Oh, please. Thank you, Julie. Is my audio okay? You're good. Okay. So this is a fifth amendment to the CEO's employment agreement. The proposal for the board to act on is a three year extension of the CEO's agreement. He was determined to have satisfactory performance, which entitles him under the contract to move to the next step of his compensation. And rather than having a step system, the amendment provides that upon satisfactory performance of his duties, including metrics defined by the board, he would receive a 5% performance pay increase on his anniversary date. Beginning on May 7th, 2022, and each anniversary date thereafter. And the last amendment is a clarification to the medical dental vision and life insurance. Julie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but everybody has to mute because I'm getting, I'm sorry, everybody has to mute. I'm getting like dual feedback here. Everybody has to mute. Is that, is that better? Can I proceed, Gina? I'm still getting two audios. Okay. Well, I'm almost done. I'm going to push through. It's a clarification that Metro will pay the full cost of term life up to three times the base salary, unless that's not available on the market, in which case the maximum level will be purchased, but it will still not exceed three times the base salary. And so that is the fifth amendment that is being brought up for board discussion and potential action. Julie, let me ask, is it good to put a motion on the floor or to wait till after we hear the public comment to put the motion on the floor? What's your advice? So I think having under the Brown Act, you can do it anyway. You just have to allow for public comment. I think what chair Lynn had been planning to do was ask for board comment, then public comment, and then the motion. Thank you. That's correct. And Gina, sorry, I might be my computer. We are having some problems. I'll address it after we're finished today on my end. Are there any comments from the board? And just a second. And are there any comments from the public? And I see Lisa. Thank you. I just want to say that I was not able to submit my written comments before the meeting because I have been involved in a job search. And I just don't have the time. But I did write up some comments. I was not able to get them in before the meeting today. I wonder if there may be a place where I can submit them. I know it's late and it's not going to have an effect for this meeting today. That's the first thing I just wanted to say. The second thing I wanted to say is what follows. It's sort of additional comments to the comments I made earlier today. Mr. Clifford obviously is a professional with a great deal of expertise. He has done some things well. I'm not trying to overlook those. I think that there are many things that he has done well that have to do with promotion of the bus company. The ads on the side of the bus that talk about the disinfecting measures that he's taking throughout the COVID are helpful to create a sense of wholesomeness and cleanliness on the bus. That's actually extremely important in these times of COVID for people to feel that they can get on the bus. However, I just want to say when it comes to the basic bus services, drivers are having an extremely difficult time getting off of one route, especially if it's a long route. For example, 71-2 Watsonville. The three bus has been canceled. That's the only bus that goes from downtown Santa Cruz to the west side. I feel that that's a classic move that's classic of this board and how the board's operated for a long time. To completely neglect the needs of bus riders, we need to get to the market over on the west side, the Safeway, and other things that are over there. The three bus was a very minimal type of schedule, but at least you could catch it. These are times of the utmost urgency with climate change, and this board is acting in a reactionary way to have hired Alex Clifford, who is a reactionary. Yes, he's getting some electric buses, but we need to have a robust promotional campaign to get people out of their fossil fuel cars and into the buses. I'm not trying to just simplify everything here as much as just make my main point. In a time when the students were crammed onto the buses, for us not to be expanding bus service, but in fact cutting it, it's just not acceptable. And to continue to blame the feds, while the CEO of this metro is getting over $22,000 a month, this is the utmost form of class oppression, and it's just really, it's irresponsible, I feel, not only to the community and to the public, but to the entire planet. And I think this board, I'm hoping you'll see a lot more pressure from the community in coming years. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, seeing no other hands, I will bring it up. Here we go. We have Krista. Hi, this is, this is Krista. I'm a Santa Cruz resident and I just wanted to throw my, throw my support behind the SEIU local 521 membership and the smart membership. I'm also a member of SEIU local 521. And just throw my weight behind their, their thoughts and their comments and support for the, for the workers. You know, this seems like a pretty, pretty sizable pay increase that Mr. Clifford is looking for. And I know that Metro is eager to increase ridership. And I guess I just hope that the board will consider, you know, will consider, you know, what Metro will need to do in order to, you know, increase ridership, given that, that the board is satisfied with Mr. Clifford's performance. Thanks. Okay. And we will bring it back to the board for, and Director Rodkin. So I move that we, that the board approve the fifth amendment as presented to us by our legal staff, Julie Sherman. And part of the motion is that our board chair will meet with Alex Clifford in private to talk about concerns the board has about any concerns the board has and has expressed about his performance. That's my motion. Second. Okay. We have a motion and a second and that's for roll call vote. One second. I have a question from Kristin. Thank you. Can you just, could you just repeat one more time what the recommendation was that Mike just made a motion based on the recommendation. I'm asking if you can repeat what was captured was a motion to approve the fifth amendment to the CEO contract as presented by legal counsel board chair to meet with CEO and private to discuss questions and performance. Is that reflect what you said, Mike? That's the motion. Okay. Thank you. And the second is by Dan Rothwell. And we had and then what the substance of that motion is and was shared for 15 minutes on this full screen with everybody. And I don't think we have a huge time issue by keeping our forum here to get our budget done. So I recommend that we move ahead. Okay. Let me take a roll call vote on that motion. Director Dutroff. Yes. Dr. Gonzalez. Yes. Dr. Calantara Johnson. Yes. Dr. Koenig. Yes. Dr. Lin. Aye. Dr. McPherson. Yes. Dr. Myers. Aye. Dr. Pinkler. Aye. Dr. Peterson. Aye. Dr. Rothwell. Yes. Dr. Rotkin. Aye. Unanimous message. Thank you. So we will move we're trying to make sure we get to the items to keep a quorum. So we will move next to oral communications to the board directors. So that would be anything anyone have any comments on anything not on the agenda. And again, we have a lease. I'm sorry. Chair Lin, I think your plan and I apologize if you've changed your mind was to move to item 15 and then circle back to the top of the agenda. I would prefer to do that if that's permissible because we do need a quorum to vote on that item. So I will sorry to hold those that may have wanted to comment. We're trying to make sure we address the matters that need a full quorum. And so next will 15 considerations of Santa Cruz Metro budget for fiscal 2223 operations budget capital and resolution setting a public hearing for June of 25, June 25, 2021. And that will be by Chuck Farmer. Hi, everybody. Good morning. I don't have the slides up. Community TV would you go to the budget please agenda item number 15 to show the slides. Unless anybody has any issues. I'm actually this board that I'm going to budget that I'm going to present is pretty similar to the budget that we went in details in the board meeting last month. What I'd like to do is just go straight to focus on the items that have changed since last month's board budget discussion, if that's okay. And that now save us a little bit of time. We're great. So if we can get it up and what I need to do is go to 15 a dash 12. Keep on going right there. Oh, I'm sorry. Keep going. That's too far. I think too far. Goodbye. Back. Back. Slow down. Slow down. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Oh, okay. All right. This was just the regular report than what's in the book. Okay, I can quickly go through this. So go to the next slide. No, no, no, no, no, no. Kingston, you're on the monthly financials. We need to go to the budget, which is agenda item number 15. I'm glad you caught that. I was just going to catch it. Yeah. Yeah. So let me grab my power point presentation, see if I can tell you what it is. And you could keep on talking if you want while they pull it up. So let me tell you exactly what's changed since the last time I presented the board. So we've increased our passenger fares based off of now that we know we're moving to yellow, we kind of predict predicted that. And we also knew that it looks like we're understated to begin with back when we last presented and we knew we were going to have an update. So we've updated the passenger fares. That actually added about almost $700,000 to the bottom line favorable to us, which is actually good news. We had a couple other little sales tax issues, but it netted to about $50,000. So that's not really material. Overall, revenue is up about $622,000 versus the last presentation we did back in March 12. On the expense side, we made a whole host of different adjustments and I do want to just kind of share this so everybody understands that we are going to move to actually offer management is going to start paying into the health plan. So there will be deductibles if you select a health plan. So the management group will be paying in. So as part of that piece to our benefits go slightly up, only that's dealing with our pension costs are increases as well as our health insurance numbers are increasing. Is that consistent with other employees? Yeah, that's correct. Keep going down. Since we're on this slide 15A, I don't know what number is keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Okay. Okay, so I'll just stop right here. So I just talked about the revenue. So as you can see salary is right here about 103,000 increase. Primarily it has to do with a lot of adjustments that we had made going back and fine tuning what the employees, the levels that we needed. We've added in, like I said, we've added back a couple heads at the same point, management pay increase was 3% to help offset some of the deductions that we are going to get for health care that management employees are going to pay. On the fringe benefit side, like I said, there's some medical costs that increased as well as slight adjustments in the pension. And that's only about 113. Some of the non-personnel cost, we had a lot of adjustments that we took place. We added in some ERP consultants, we knew it would be a little bit higher. We also had some IT costs. We had power that we had to put in for the electric buses coming in, so we had to increase it. And that was slightly offset because we actually delayed the bus leases from 2022 to 2023. So it kind of netted to about $67,000. Overall, our operating expense is about $282,000 up. So as you can see, about $622,000 in revenue up offset by about $282,000 in higher operating expenses. So clearly, we're talking about a $300,000 swing between the last budget to this budget. So in that scheme of things, we're pretty much in the same ballpark as what we talked about back in March. Outside of that, nothing else has truly changed in the budget since the last president. That's all I have unless people have any questions. Thank you. Anyone have any questions about the update on the budget? Could we go to the page in the budget that shows the bottom line what our projection is for the two year, at the end of this year, coming year, that would be 21-22 and then 22-23. So the public, even though we all saw it just to be clear where we're going with our final budget, because we're going to vote on this in June, we usually don't, we can make changes of course in June, but we typically, if we're unhappy with this budget, we tend to express our concerns now. So people are clear where we're going with the final budget. So that would be, you go back up and that's 15A4, so that's about 10 slides before this, right there. There you go. Yeah, maybe you could go over that and sort of describe that, you know, where we look, what our budget looks like for the next two years, if we approve this in June or something close to it. Sure, sure. So our budget right now on our total operating revenue is about $54.6 million in 22. That's increasing to 55.1 as we come out of COVID. Primarily the big drop from 21-22 is we expected 21 to go have fully recovered to pre-COVID levels, which of course didn't happen, it's kind of lingering out much longer. 22 still has some remnants of COVID as well as 23 as we build ourselves out. So that's what's happening on the revenue side. On the cost side, what you're seeing in the personnel expenses are as you're basically your increases year over year from 21 to 22, as well as the standardized adjustments of the 3% for management, the 2.25 and the 2.5% for the unions. And then in 23, we're only looking at step increases for the personal expenses. On the non-personnel side, go back to that slide for a moment or stay the first one. Yeah, so just again for the public to understand and the employees as well. So there's no money in this budget that you've laid out for pay increases that will certainly, I don't know what they're going to be, but certainly pay increases will be bargained with the units. And that money will have to come at some, right now I have a balanced budget. If it's going to stay balanced, we're going to have to find somewhere in this budget to find enough money to pay for whatever those bargain pay increases are. Do I understand that correctly? That's correct for 23 on, yes. Okay, so I just wanted to be clear about that. We didn't, it's not in the budget now. We would not have a balanced budget unless we find, reduce some expense somewhere in this, in this budget in the coming year or find a new source of revenue, one or the other. That's correct. Thank you. That's why those are my only questions. Thanks. Okay. And then the non-personals are standardized increases that you know for contracts, electrical, diesel fuel and so forth of that nature. Overall operating expenses are going from about 55 to about $56 million, about a million year over year. And then of course that's increasing again then to 58. So overall, like I said, we're looking at balancing the budget for each of the three years. The biggest issue is when you go down to the very bottom, second to the bottom line, transfers from our COVID recovery. So in 22, in order to balance everything out, we need to transfer about $6 million from our COVID recovery in order to balance out our budget. In FY23, that number grows to $7.3 million. And as Mike alluded to earlier, for whatever reason, we end up paying, which we know we will, increases and in salaries in 23, that number is going to increase unless we find costs somewhere to reduce. And that's it unless anybody has any questions. Anyone else have other questions? I know we want to get a vote before we lose a board member. But if you have any questions, if not, then I will ask if there's a motion. No, she has to hear from the public first. You're right. I'm trying to hurry too quickly. Any questions or comments from the public? And we have a lease again. Thank you again. I just wanted to say I would like for, by the way, I wasn't going to speak earlier. I had my hand up accidentally, but now I am speaking and I appreciate the chance to speak. I just wanted to say I would like to ask the board to seriously consider as we move forward into the future to work harder to engage the public in these meetings. I think they're extremely instructive. Obviously a lot of the public is not going to be able to come because they have jobs and other things that are going to conflict. But I really feel that the public transportation system is so critical to our lives and our actual, it's a life support system, not only because it takes people to work and to the grocery store or whatever, but because it is the emergency system, I understand I was being told by a bus driver, it actually is kind of the skeletal backbone in certain crises. We're going to have to go to the bus if people need to be moved places in a crisis. For example, a tsunami or a hurricane, I don't know, but it's a safety system as well as just a basic life support system. In addition, because of climate change and everything that's happening in the world, that affects our coastline, that affects our community, that we will be seeing more and greater effects of the fires, etc. I think that we really need to bring the public into these meetings. And what I wanted to ask the board is if you might consider moving forward, especially when it comes to the budget, a lot of us are kind of new, and this is certainly nothing something I'm very expert at. So I appreciate the simplicity of the charts that I see. But I really think that we need to be public into these processes. And I wanted to ask you all, if you could advertise the board meetings more fully, I think that they are to some extent notified on the buses. And the other thing that I just want to say is when it comes to things like I'm talking about, the budget climate change, what kind of ridership you're trying to bring into the bus. I've noticed in a lot of the presentations over the years, certain consultants refer to the bus system as kind of for the poor, for the aged. I mean, they don't necessarily use these exact words. But I would like to see the bus promoted. And I think Mr. Clifford has done a good job on this to a to a certain extent. I would like to see the bus and the public transit system be made more central in terms of really engaging the community in advance to try to talk about how can we use our public transportation system to help us out to build community resilience as we're moving into serious climate change years. And and just to help people understand the budgets and so forth. I just want to thank you so much for you know, including me. And it's been a good meeting. And I appreciate being here. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Okay, now I before we run out of time. Do we have a motion? I'll move that we approve this budget and set the budget hearing for the final budget in June. And the date of June 25. I second that. And got a motion and a second by Larry. Yep. And a roll call vote is to accept a resolution setting a public hearing at our next board meeting on June 25 2021 motion by director Rotkin second by director payler and the roll call vote is Dr. Dutra. Yes. Dr. Gonzalez. Yes. Dr. Johnson. Yes. Dr. Coney. Yes. Dr. Lynn. Aye. Dr. Peterson. Aye. Aye. Gotcha. Director Myers. Aye. Dr. Paygler. Aye. Dr. Peterson. Aye. Dr. Rothwell. Yes. And Dr. Rotkin. Aye. The unanimous. All right. I wanted to be sure we had everyone here for a vote on both of these items that we needed a quorum. Donna, I also need a vote on accepting the consent agenda. Yeah. Okay. So we next we'll move back to the consent agenda. Are there any changes to the consent agenda? No, ma'am. No. Okay. Again, ask the public and the board for comments. That's what I'm trying to. Sorry. And we have any comment from the public on the consent agenda. And I see Elise's hand up. She took her hand out. Then could we have a vote on the to prove the consent agenda? Do you have a motion? I'll move the consent agenda. I'll second it. I'm sorry. Who is the second? For some reason has Gina's name on his picture there. Dr. Gonzalez is all blonde. Okay. Roll call to accept the consent agenda as presented. Roll call is Dr. Dutra. Yes. Dr. Gonzalez. Yes. Dr. Colantara Johnson. Yes. Dr. Koenig. Aye. Dr. Lin. Aye. Dr. McPherson. Aye. Thank you. Dr. Myers. Aye. Dr. Padler. Aye. Dr. Peterson. Aye. Dr. Roswell. Aye. Dr. Ruckin. Aye. And another unanimous decision. Okay. And this is a challenge. Can I keep my place on this? Where are we going next? Okay. Board of Director comments. And are there, is there anything from the Board of Directors? Okay. Not seeing any hands. Then we will next go to Labor Organization Communications. I think it's next. Actually, oral communication from the public on items not on the agenda. Oh, I thought we did. Oh, well, that's right. I started it and had to move away from it. Sorry about that. See, oral. And so now is the time for, and we had some hands from the public on anything that is not on the agenda. And it's Elise and Brett Garrett. Okay. Thank you all. I just wanted to say, I would like to see excuse me. I'm sorry. I hope you can hear me. I would like to see the board and the Metro company come out in a much more transparent way. Plans that you patient of the bus state. I didn't hear it coming. We've seen to have lost her. Parts of the various buildings and complexes that are getting developed. I think it's to really understand what I heard. At least you're breaking up. We're not hearing you steadily. Can you hear me? No, it's broken up. Maybe if you have a brief comment, you should start to make it clear because we miss part of it. Still breaking up. At least we're not hearing anything. Let's go ahead and we'll move to the next person. We did have, I think it was Brett, had a hand up and no hands up now. Okay. All right. I'm sorry, Elise. We didn't get much of it, but we are running, we're short on time, so we're going to move forward and see if we can work that in next. Okay. She could send an email that would be shared. Well, Elise, we're going to ask you to email because we could not hear you. Sounded like a bad connection. All right. Our next is labor organization communications. Is no one from labor wishing to comment at this time? Here we go. Here's, well, well, Brett Garrett's hand comes up and back. So maybe he may have been waiting for labor organization. No, he's telling us to talk about PRT, I think. And he had tried to earlier. So we'll go ahead and include Brett. Hi. Thank you. I'm sorry. I don't know if I missed public comment. You're just in time. You should go ahead and do it. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. I'm Brett Garrett from Santa Cruz, and I just want to tell you about an innovative transportation project in East Contra Costa County, not far from us. They call it various names, including dynamic mass transit or virtual rail, but it's basically a high capacity personal rapid transit system, also known as PRT. It will consist of very small vehicles, golf cart size, running along a dedicated guideway, completely separate from cars and pedestrians. The guideway is a very lightweight infrastructure. So it could be like an elevated bike path or the vehicles can also run on the ground if they're separated from transit, from traffic. This is going to be a 28 mile system serving three BART stations. The local bus agency Tri Delta Transit is deeply involved in this project and helped to organize the feasibility study, which suggests they will more than triple their ridership when this system is installed. In the past month, this project has been endorsed by four city councils, Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley and Pittsburgh. It's being built by Glideways, a Bay Area company that plans to offer test rides next month in Concord. I've been researching and advocating PRT for years and it's felt like pie in the sky, but this project is bringing it down to earth. PRT is real and mathematically it works. I'm a mathematician. This project checks all the boxes of what we need here in Santa Cruz County. It's incredibly efficient, reducing the energy usage per passenger mile. It's very convenient, providing on demand, socially distanced service for passengers. It doesn't depend on a rail corridor. It could provide direct service to our three transit centers and two hospitals, not to mention Cabrio College and UCSC. Just imagine being able to hop on transit in Watsonville with little or no waiting and riding nonstop to UCSC within 40 minutes. That could be during rush hour and it could be a two in the morning. The system would be running 24-7 automated and it would completely transform our transportation and you Metro can get it done just as Tri Delta transit is doing in Contra Costa County. There's a number of companies offering this kind of technologies, but I think the one that's doing Contra Costa is worth a look. It's called Glideways. They're almost local. They're building a 20-mile system, a 28-mile system nearby. I've uploaded their presentation to YouTube that was done in Pittsburgh, so you can find it. You can search for Glideways-Pittsburgh. That's Glideways-G-L-Y-D-W-A-Y-S and Pittsburgh without an H. It's worth taking half an hour to watch the presentation if you search for Glideways-Pittsburgh. So yeah, we can do this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, and one last call for any comments from labor organizations. James Sandoval. I just got to say it's a little disheartening what just happened with both of our unions and the entire staff coming forward, sticking our neck out to give you all the information that you needed to make a well-informed decision. And, you know, needless to say that I met with each and every one of you this whole month and to act like you support us and to vote unanimously in support of the decision you just made and to reward this type of behavior is just really sad to see. And it's also sad to know our public comments or us speaking out to the board is just a procedural thing and not such something that you guys really take into consideration. And regardless, you know, I've said it since the beginning, both of our unions are going to strive to make it work. And I know we just voiced yourselves, but Alex and the board, we really hope that we could start working on this relationship because obviously you need some improvement. Thank you. Thank you, James. Anyone else? Okay. Joan Jeffries. Hi. I just wanted to say thank you, James, for making those comments. And as a representative of SEIU, we support what James just said. Everything that he said is accurate and correct. And it is very disappointing, but we also hope that there is some way that things can improve. So thank you for listening. That's all. Thank you, Joan. Okay. And if there are no other comments from the public or actually on labor organization communications, then Metro Advisory Committee, anything from Matt? We have no written communication from Matt. Nothing, ma'am. Mike? I just want to point out that we did get written communication both from both of our Congress members, Jimmy Panetta and Anna Issue, that they put Metro projects into their list of possible consideration for earmarks. Congress is now considering bringing earmarks back and each Congress member has been invited to make a certain, you know, to propose a number of items and they both of them have proposed Metro projects as part of what they would like to see funded. And we should thank them publicly. I'm assuming we rule by letter formally, but also just here in public in our meeting. Thank them for including us in their considerations. Yes. And they're only permitted to submit a limited number. And it was wonderful that we are one of those items that they brought forward. So agreed. And we will express our appreciation and good to do it publicly here as well. Next, any additional documentation and support existing agenda items? Nothing from that. Gina is shaking her head for me. And so we will go to the next item is CEO COVID report. Thank you, Madam Chair and directors. And I do want to take a quick moment to thank you for your earlier action on my annual review and my contract. It's much appreciated. We've had no new hires or promotions since our last meeting. And I'm happy to report no new COVID cases since March 15. We remain at about 70% of all our employees having been fully vaccinated. So that has improved over what it was initially. We'd still like to see that get up towards 80% plus. But hopefully we'll see some more movement there. On May 1, we increased our bus capacity from 15 to 25 on the 40 footers. And from up to 17 on the 35 footers. That seems to be showing real positive signs. We've pretty much seen all the pass ups at least for now go down with the exception of our highway 17 service. That one continues to experience relatively high pass ups because we still must follow the Santa Clara County health officers directive about capacity limitations on buses within Santa Clara County. So we're still at eight passengers on those buses, which is obviously the reason why we're leaving so many people behind to try to compensate for that. We do run extra buses, but it doesn't fully compensate as we are still passing people up. On a positive note, I did hear from the CEO over the hill acting CEO over the hill this week that there are ongoing discussions with their county health officer. And they hope to be able to announce something either this week or next week. So we'll be watching closely for that. Also following the governor's upcoming June 5th announcement, whatever he's representing that could be really good stuff will review whatever that announcement is on June 15th and then make any adjustments accordingly. You probably have heard that the governor issued his mate revised budget. It includes 100 billion in new economic stimulus called California comeback plan. And within that is 11 billion for transportation. Now that's being proposed. That still has to get through the process. But just a couple of highlights zero emission buses and trucks is 1.4 billion priority transit and rail projects 1 billion zero emission rail and transit equipment purchase and infrastructure 407 million Los Angeles Olympics they're going to get 1 billion to deliver critical projects in time for the 2028 Olympics. High priority grade separations and grade crossing improvements 500 million high speed rail got 4.2 billion or would get that the state highway rehabilitation and local roads and bridges would be 2 billion active transportation 500 million. And then finally in closing, we had a lengthy discussion about restrooms at transit centers last month. I will try to avoid going down that road too far, but I do want to tell you that as of today, both restrooms opened up at Watsonville transit center and Pacific station we put in place various measures including upgrading security. So those are open from 8am to 8pm daily and madam chair that concludes my remarks and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Are there any questions and any questions from the public? Okay. All right, we will move next to the is oh we have our next item of belief is recess recess to close session on conference labor negotiations pursuant to government code section 54957.6. You might want to announce the next meeting before we go into that question. Thank you. Good point. Yeah, we let's see. June 25th. Thank you, Gina. Our next meeting will be June 25th for those who are not going to remain too. And I don't know if we I believe we will be reporting out after this closed session. Julia, will there be something that we will report out? Well, I don't know and I don't think there is reportable action, but I don't know if the board will make a statement. Okay, so we will move to closed session and at least be able to provide the information on the next meeting for those that may not be here. And everyone will use the same link as the morning's closed session. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Community TV and everyone. Okay. Well, I was I'm waiting. I was waiting for Julie, I thought, but that's okay. I'm just going to report that we have nothing to report back from closed session. Wait, sorry, you officially have to call us back in there. Reconvene. Okay. I'm I'm thank you, Gina. We're reconvening the meeting after closed session at this time. And I have nothing to report back. So we will be adjourning and thank you all for bouncing back and forth with us and hanging in there. So see you June 25th or sooner with our committee meetings. But take care, everyone. Thank you. And Donna, before we go, I just have to apologize that your computer is fine. It was operator error on my part that was had that echo going. Well, I hope it is. I've had a complaint on echoing. So I've been thinking I had to buy a new computer. I'm glad it's not too bad on your end. No, baby. It was total operator error on my part. Good. Have a good day. Thank you. You too.